1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to athletic flooring structures.
Athletic flooring structures have become sophisticated in their design and technology. The old gymnasium floor has given way to the multipurpose flooring for a vast array of activities. Simple stability and durability while still critical attributes have been joined by other measurable attributes such as resilience, wave propagation and/or damping, rebound, point loading and rolling load properties, surface wear and damage resistance properties and more.
The athletic flooring industry has provided a steady stream of inventions that have led to improved quality of flooring at reduced flooring costs. Among these inventions are; inventions that provide resilience of limited amplitude and propagation, and inventions that permit air flow and ventilation throughout the subfloor.
The flooring industry has developed standards for measuring the physical properties of athletic floors. The most widely used standard is the DIN tests and DIN certification. DIN tests and certification are disclosed in detail in the applicant""s U.S. Pat No. 5,299,401 to Shelton, which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous novel structures for providing resilience and for limiting the amplitude of vertical movement permitted resilient flooring systems are present in the patent art. U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,917 to Shelton and U.S. Pat. No. 4,856,250 to Gronau et al teach sleepers that are provided with a resilient means that bears against a fixed base and provides an upward bias to the sleeper and a means for limiting the upward movement of the sleeper. U.S. Pat. No. 5,369,927 to Counihan teaches resiliently biased sleepers having outward directed restraint engaging means incorporated into the structure of the sleeper and upward movement limiting restraints secured to a base and engaging said restraint engaging means.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,621 to Shelton teaches an open flooring substructure that permits ventilation of said subfloor for the purpose of maintaining a dry subfloor.
The prior art known to the inventor at the time of the preparation of this specification does not show or teach a ventilated resilient subfloor that can be adjusted to provide desirable athletic flooring attributes without departing from the fundamental flooring structure.
The invention is for an anchored ventilated resilient athletic flooring structure; comprising a multiplicity of parallel vertical restraints secured to a base and said restraints have outwardly directed lateral flanges, a multiplicity of spaced apart transverse struts positioned between said vertical restraints and under said lateral flanges and having a resilient biasing means secured underneath said struts such that said resilient biasing means supports said struts above said base so as to resiliently engage said struts with said lateral flanges, a multiplicity of spaced apart nailers secured to the tops of said struts and said nailers are laid parallel to said vertical restraints and transverse to said struts, and a continuous flooring secured to said nailers and having wood strips laid transverse to said nailers.